hopeless wanderer

A fedora clad photo from 2008 roaming the streets of Italy left me with Mumford & Son’s “Hopeless Wanderer” in my head. I’ve been spending a good amount of time lately speaking + thinking about time + purpose. This photo invoked nostalgia to past years spent wandering, not hopeless but going thru the motions - in work, relationships, conversations, commitments ... spending time wasting time, without clear purpose. AUTOPILOT on.

How often do we spend time doing things without clear purpose? We do things to say we did them, to check them off our "to-do" lists. But what if there was purpose behind your actions? And everything you did resulted in you getting what you set out to -- with purpose. In other words, stop phoning in your life. Start connecting to what you're doing and why.

Why not take a step back and ask yourself why? from the simplest things to the most intricate in life: Why am I ordering another beer? Why am I working out? Why am I going out with him/her?Why am I still in the job I don’t like? Am I happy? Why or why not?

The answers can be simple: I wanted another beer. The burger looked good. I like to sweat. My job affords me the life I want. Or complicated: I’m filing empty holes in my life thru food, drink, job, dating to make myself feel full. The answers can also be excuses.Disconnected.Autopilot.

Bottom line is: are you connected to a purpose or hopelessly wandering thru time? Are you connected to the work that you’re doing? To the food that you’re eating? To the time that you’re spending? To the people you are with? Or not?

What if you connected to a purpose - if you were honest with yourself about the decisions that you make? What if you shut off “autopilot” and stopped making excuses for why you might not be as fulfilled as you could be? What if you stopped trying to control the impossible and started to control what is, the decisions that are yours.

Time is not something we can control. But how we spend our time is.with purpose. Intention. Connection. AUTOPILOT off. Presence on. Present in every decision. Connected to every action. Purposefully acting instead of reacting. With intention.

Don’t “date” because you have to date or because you want to talk about it. Don’t “work out” so you can check it off your to-do list. Don’t clock in + clock out of your life. I wake up with purpose. With gratitude for what I have. And purpose in where I am going. Because at some point I recognized that autopilot was no place for me.I buckled up to pilot my own life.

Your roadmap is yours to write. Stop allowing other people or external things to dictate your direction. Do what you love. Use time as your tool. Make the most of each moment. take control of what you can. Autopilot off. Hopeless wanderer no more. Its. Your. Life.